Obsessed with My Lawn, But I Come By It Naturally

I’ll bet, like every father, my Dad occasionally sits around wondering, “I wonder if I made an impression on my children and taught them something?”

Well, Dad, rest assured, you did. Especially when it comes to my lawn. My Dad always had the best lawn on the block. Period. And he seemed to have it effortlessly. He didn’t pay for a sprinkler system. He mowed it himself. He watered it with a oscillating sprinkler. He didn’t hire a service to fertilize and treat his lawn. But it was perfect. He plucked dandelions by hand.

His most amazing feat happened when we moved to a new house in the summer of 1988. Most everyone in the neighborhood had sod delivered and installed. Insta-lawn. Lawn in a day. And then they ran their in-ground sprinklers to make sure it took. My Dad? He planted seed. Not spray-on seed like many more of the new builds used. Nope. Grass seed that he spread by hand. He was patient. And disciplined. He watered. He overseeded. He mowed and trimmed. Overseeded some more. Fertilized four times a year.

It was an awesome lawn.

Now, here I am, almost 30 years later and I obsess about my lawn. It’s my pride an joy. I mow it myself. I fertilize it myself. I pull weeds by hand. I spot spray others. And now I’m remaking my backyard to be a grown-up/teen friendly yard and it required me to get rid of my sandbox, a play structure, and we had to take down a dead pine. I found some bricks to build a fire pit, but what I’m most excited about? I’m most excited about the sandbox area and the areas that surrounded the pine and how I’m planting grass seed and how, by next spring, it will be like a carpet around my firepit.

This either makes me borderline insane, or it shows I have a hobby, albeit unorthodox and not quite golfing or running. I like my lawn and take pride in it. My wife bought an outdoor couch at a garage sale. I built a fire pit. We’re rethinking and redesigning our garden path (which mostly became a weed-ville). And as Droopy says, ya know what? I’m happy.